Kiss My Eyes
by Boyue
Summary: Many people thought that once Shukaku was removed from Gaara’s body, he would finally be able to sleep. Those people did not know how scary sleep could be to someone who had never rested once since his birth. -GaaLee/One-shot-


**Naruto and its characters © Masashi Kishimoto**

**Dedicated to ****yggdrasilxxx**** – A fluffy GaaLee one-shot for you, my friend! ****Buon Natale! =)**

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**KISS MY EYES**

Many people thought, quite foolishly, that once Shukaku was removed from Gaara's body, the insomniac would be finally able to sleep. Those people did not comprehend how frightening sleep could be to someone who had never rested once since his birth. They also didn't realize how busy the Kazekage was. From the crack of dawn, he sat in front of his desk and read through endless piles of paperwork until an hour before the next dawn arrived. He would take a short break, quietly contemplating to himself if he should take a nap. Then there was the tiny inexplicable fear in his head, perhaps the remnant of the demon's voice, that warned him not to sleep. If he were to sleep, who could guarantee that he would wake up the next day? His body might go through a complete shut-down to compensate the fifteen years lack of sleep. Gaara wasn't about to let sleep take over his life, now that he had finally gained a bit of control. So sleeping was put to the very bottom of Gaara's agenda. Besides, his schedule really prohibited it. He barely had time to eat if it weren't for Temari putting plates of sandwich and bowls of rice on his crowded desk. Work made him lose his appetite, but fortunately his metabolism was low enough that he didn't go starving.

In the rare moment when he wasn't swarmed with work and the rest of his village had fallen into a dead sleep, Gaara would wander the streets without a purpose. He would use his free time to think about the future of Sunagakure, his sister and his brother, his status as the Kazekage and how long he was expected to be the village leader. He was only sixteen years old; he didn't want to be the Kazekage until he was eighty. He would gladly give his life to protect his village and he had done so once already. But Gaara could really do without the mind-numbing paperwork and mundane meetings with the elders. He climbed to the roof of the tallest building in the village and gaze off at the direction of a certain village to the northeast, wondering what a certain green-clad ninja was doing. Sleeping, most likely, Gaara answered his own question. He hoped, shyly, that the said ninja was dreaming about him. But of course, the proud Kazekage would never admit to anyone that the over-energetic ninja was in his thoughts quite often.

Gaara had long realized that there were certain _things_ going through his mind that resembled _something_ that somewhat worried him. His fingers would touch his forehead tattoo and he would wonder slightly if what happening was what Yashamaru talked about. He didn't like the thought, but he was starting to maybe, a little, very little, very very little, think that he might possess some feelings toward the Kononha chunin. The word "feeling" made his chest tensed. Of all the people in the world, he had to pick that ninja to have feelings for. It was a good thing that he didn't have a lot of time to think, or else, Gaara was sure that he would go insane over these bothersome… _feelings_.

He hopped down from the roof and returned to his work. If he could fill his head with only mission reports, he would have a trouble-free day. Temari came into the office and put his prepared breakfast on the corner of the desk, making sure that it wasn't going to be knocked down by Gaara's elbow. Gaara thanked her quietly. Gratitude was something he expressed more often now, but he was still stingy at giving them out.

"Got any sleep last night?" Temari asked.

"No," Gaara answered. He shifted his attention from a scroll to his lunch. Uninterested, he went back to work.

"Did you at least try?" she pressed. Some would call Temari an overbearing sibling, but she had more than a decade worth of sistering to make up for.

"Yes. It didn't work." The more accurate truth would be that he didn't feel sleepy. A little white lie couldn't hurt anyone.

"Well, try harder," she said. She took out two scrolls and placed them on the desk. She waited for Gaara to make a reaction but left the room when she received none from her little brother.

Gaara devoted the rest of the day catching up on his never-ending work. When night came, he took a break and repeated the ritual he did every night. Under the glow of the pearl moon, he tried to sort out his "feelings" for a man very far away from him. One day blended into the next and the next and the next, it was very easy for Gaara to lose track of what day and date it was. At the end of every week, Gaara had a meeting with the advisors and the elders for a weekly report on the progress of the village. After the meeting, everyone else would call it a day and enjoy their weekend. For Gaara, there was no such thing as a weekend or a holiday or a vacation. It was work, work, and more work. At times, he felt like he was squandering his youth. But it wasn't like he was going to put on a green jumpsuit and cry tears of manliness in his sensei's arms.

After the meeting, Gaara returned to his office and resumed another day of performing his Kazekage duties. The hours went by quickly as he tried to figure how to reduce the budget for the new academy. He didn't want to raise taxes on the villagers, and it was giving him a big headache. Finance was not exactly his forte. He put aside the file, planning to return to it at a later time. A knock on the door distracted and gave him a welcoming break. Temari walked in with someone Gaara hadn't expected to see. He found himself suddenly sitting up straight and his hands straightening his Kazekage robe under the desk.

"You got a surprise visitor," Temari said.

"Forgive my intrusion, Kazekage-sama!" The ever-energized Rock Lee saluted with a firm stand.

"Did Tsunade send you?" If the Hokage did, Gaara could only assume something interesting was about to happen.

"No, this is a private matter," Lee responded. He relaxed his shoulders and eyed Temari.

"If you need anything, give me a shout," Temari said. She left the room and closed the door behind her.

Gaara stayed seat behind his desk. It was probably rude of him to do so but his legs seemed to have frozen in place. What private matter could Lee bring him? He kept a close look at Lee as he walked over and stopped in front of the desk. Neither of them said a word. Gaara would've expected Lee to talk his ear off by now. But the chunin was oddly quiet. Lee looked about the office and made a quick compliment of how spacious it was. Gaara crossed his arms over his chest out of habit. Now, he thought, maybe a good time to discuss his feelings with the party involved. Lee probably knew more about it than he did. Before he had a chance to speak, however, Lee took the stage.

"Temari-san told me you have not been sleeping," he said.

"Yes." He was curious to know why Temari would tell Lee such a thing. The last time he checked, the only person in Konoha his sister cared about the Nara genius.

"Do you mind if I ask why?"

"I don't feel the need to." He didn't want to tell the truth that he was actually scared to. He needed to appear strong in front of a ninja from another village.

"Do you not get tired?"

"Sometimes."

"But you do not sleep?"

"No." How long was it going to take Lee to understand that the Kazekage simply did not sleep?

"Are you afraid?" Lee asked.

Gaara suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable. He doubted Lee would read his mind. It must be in his gestures or his body language or in what he said. He wasn't sure how Lee knew but he didn't like that Lee knew. He glared up at the chunin, hoping to intimidate the fearless man. He kept his lips firmly pressed. His face should be enough to scare Lee off.

"Ah, forgive me! I d-did not mean to be so rude."

"Is there a reason why you're here? You didn't spend three days on the road to discuss my sleeping habit, did you?"

"Actually I did… and I hope I am not interrupting your work," Lee answered. He walked around the desk and stood in front of Gaara, who had turned his chair to the side to face him. "Whenever I could not sleep as a child, my caretaker had a trick to help me fall asleep."

"Show me." If that was what Lee had wanted to do, Gaara figured he could at least humor him.

Lee nodded his head. He took another step toward Gaara, making sure that he didn't make the Kazekage feel cornered. He leaned his upper body forward until his head was inches away from Gaara's. Gaara felt his ears heated up at the close proximity of the Konoha ninja. He wasn't using to such close contact and it was making him nervous. He had an impulse to knock Lee away with a pillar of sand but that wouldn't be very nice of him and hurting Lee was one of the last things he wanted to do. Lee dropped his eyes and continued to lean forward until his lips touched the upper area between Gaara's eyelid and eyebrow. He placed a very soft kiss there. The gentle contact exploded Gaara's mind. He felt a jolt running from his spine up to his head. He felt lightheaded, like whenever he stood up too fast after sitting down for a long time and the blood couldn't get to his head fast enough. He took a sharp breath. His eyelids fluttered against his will.

"Is that is?" Gaara asked with a hint of shyness.

"It always did the trick for me," Lee said as he pulled away quickly and stepped back to an appropriate distance. "I hope it will work for you as well!"

"We'll see."

Gaara didn't think he would be falling asleep anytime soon. But after what happened, he didn't feel so scared to sleep anymore. He would be sure not to stay asleep forever. He had a reason not to. If he didn't wake from his sleep, he wouldn't be able to feel the heart-racing thrill of Lee's lips on his skin again. And Gaara wouldn't trade anything in the world for that feeling.

Feelings, perhaps they weren't such horrible things after all.

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**Boyue's Note: This isn't the original story that I've planned for you. But yeah… I started writing it at 2 and finished at 3. xDD**

**12.23.08**

**3:18 AM**


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